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The Welsh were particularly enthusiastic teeth-cleaners, rubbing them till they shone 'like ivory'

A brief history of human filth: how did people try to keep clean in the past?.Alexander of Neckham, who lived in Paris in the 1170s, complained that he was often woken in the morning by street cries of, “The baths are hot!” A few decades later, there were at least 32 public baths in the city. Not all washing was done at home, and town-dwellers could enjoy a trip to the public baths. Washing equipment made up a substantial portion of the possessions in his sparsely furnished home. Robert Oldham (d1350), a well-to-do Oxfordshire peasant, owned two basins and four ewers. Ownership of basins and ewers (large jugs) used for washing the hands and face extended to all but the poorest. Such luxury was limited to the grandest royal residences, but many households owned a large wooden tub, lined with cloth and sometimes covered by a canopy, which could be filled with hot water heated over the fire. Hair was combed daily, sometimes with special powders made from sweet-smelling ingredients such as rose petals. Then people were advised to prepare a mixture of ground needle seeds and vinegar, do some vigorous exercise to warm the body, and smear the mixture on the skin.ĭoctors recommended washing hair – at least once every three weeks – with water and herbal preparations. One way to combat dirt was to shave or pluck unwanted hair. And to ensure that their garments emerged thoroughly 'clean', they sometimes added stale urine or wood ash to the water. Our ancestors washed clothes and domestic linens in a tub, or in a river or a stream. The same equipment was used for handwashing throughout the day.

She advised cleaning them with a cloth dipped in wine in which 'there have been boiled leaves of bilberry, or the billberries themselves.'Īlthough medieval people didn't bathe in the morning, they used an ewer and basin to wash their hands and face when they woke up. 'There are some women who have sweat that stinks beyond measure,' noted the 12th-century writer Trota of Salerno. The medieval hygiene guide 5 tips for combating grime in the Middle Ages 1) Clean with wine His descendants had even better facilities: in 1351, Edward III bought new taps for his Westminster bath chamber, which had both cold and hot running water. He travelled with a bath-tub, employed a bath-man, and once took 10 baths in six months. Although he had many faults, King John almost certainly didn’t smell. So, the benefits of good hygiene were well established, but did medieval people follow the medical advice? All the evidence suggests that rich people washed regularly, and spent a lot of money on making bathing a luxury experience – for example, by supplementing wood-ash soap with expensive scented oils. Nightly bathing or foot-washing was a popular late medieval cure for the common cold. But they also thought that bathing could prevent and cure illness, and prescribed it for conditions ranging from bladder stones to melancholy.

They urged caution during epidemics, because heating the body opened the pores to disease, and because sickness spread easily in bath-houses. Did medieval people take baths?Ĭontrary to popular belief, medieval doctors were enthusiastic about the benefits of bathing. Readers were instructed to wash their hands, face, mouth and head every morning, and to wash their hands throughout the day, particularly before meals.

#Image cleaner as good as history kill full#

Consequently, both medical writings and advice literature were full of exhortations to good hygiene.